Flags for love at 4 Love Lane

Family wears hearts on sleeve, er clothesline, in Kittery, Maine

As a news photographer, I spend a lot of time in my car, driving from assignment to assignment, and while traveling I'm always looking for that slice of life that makes you say, "Hey, that's cool" or "Wow, that's different."

As a news photographer, I spend a lot of time in my car, driving from assignment to assignment, and while traveling I'm always looking for that slice of life that makes you say, "Hey, that's cool" or "Wow, that's different."

I was in Kittery taking a shortcut on Love Lane and BOOM! The wind was whipping and heart flags of different designs were being tossed by the force and made me feel, well, happy. I pulled over, climbed the snow bank and tried to make images that would work with the angle, light and depth of field I was going for.

I made the shots, got in my car and something was bothering me. Something was missing. What do you think it was? Yup, a person.

I submitted it first as a standalone photo. You know those images that you see in the newspaper with no story but just have a caption? I wasn't happy with that. I shared my sighting with my boss, Howard, and he thought I could do better, too.

So the next step was reaching out. I reached out to some friends on Facebook who live in Kittery.

"Can anyone tell me the story behind these hearts?"

I got the name of the woman, Ashley Kehrig, who did them and she actually saw the image on my Facebook page and liked it, so I already had her contact info! Awesome. We wrote back and forth a bit, then I asked if she was up for a short interview and portrait with her and her two sons, who I found out helped with the project, and she responded, sure.

I believe everyone has a story to tell. Some have many. Within 10 minutes of showing up at her house, I learned some interesting things that could be stories in their own right. She was walking her dog, Rosie, a beautiful black Lab with a good nature. She told me that she and her best friend from elementary school actually share Rosie. When Ashley has her kids, she has the dog; and the next week, her friend has it. The dog is very well adjusted and it's just something as friends they decided to do years ago. How cool is that?

Another possible story when I was standing in the kitchen occurred to me when my attention was drawn to a photograph on the wall. I look at a lot of images and this one really got to me. The image was one of fog and mist looking like early morning at a lake. Two women were at the end of a weathered dock that sunk and merged into the water's surface. They stood at the end of the dock, arms extended and knees bent, ready to jump in. The piece is called "Lake Atitlan, Guatemala," and the photographer, Amy Toensing, was 19 at the time and was living with Kehrig while interning at Salt Institute in Portland, Maine. She now is a photographer at National Geographic. Cool again.

Finally, I learned that she and her ex-husband were co-founders of Tidewater School, an independent Waldorf school in Eliot whose philosophy involves education by respecting "the whole child." I thought that was cool, too.

Anyway, that was the first 10 minutes there. I came to tell the story about the heart clothesline! It's a slice of life in the small community of Kittery. Curiosity is a wonderful thing.

"When we first moved into the house," said Kehrig, "the address is 4 Love Lane, it's not 6 or 8 or 10, it's 4 Love and we felt like we had a lot of responsibility with an address like that, so every year we've done a heart installation. From what I hear, it's made a lot of people besides us happy, too."

When asked how long they would keep it up, she said, "This is the longest it's been up because the snow was so deep we couldn't come out to get it! So we figure it will be our version of prayer flags and we'll keep them up for a while."